The main objective of this program is to carry out automatic visual observations and analyses of biological systems and medical specimens by means of a high speed electronics scanner-computer recently constructed for this purpose. This "television-computer" combination will be used for counting colonies of bacteria and other microorganisms grown in culture dishes and for identifying the organisms by observation of colony morphology, growth rate, nutritional requirements, drug resistances, and other characteristics which can be studied during growth on solid media. Such observations will be used to select and characterize mutants, to study the genetics of microorganisms, to investigate taxonomic relationships, to measure rates of mutations caused by various agents, to identify organisms for rapid medical diagnosis or public health applications, and many other purposes involving viruses, bacteria, yeast, algae, cells grown in tissue culture, etc. The system can be programmed to take an active role in an experiment by changing the growth temperature, adding nutrients or drugs, and carrying out other operations during growth when further information about the organisms is desired. Simply by a change in the computer program, the same equipment can be used for studying behavior and learning in small animals as well as for a wide variety of other biomedical tasks requiring extensive visual observation. A number of different precision incubator-cameras have been constructed for making time lapse photographs of growing colonies and other biological systems under accurately controlled conditions to provide a photographic record for subsequent analysis by the scanner- computer system. A television camera connected directly with the computer will be constructed for real time biomedical studies eliminating the photography step for applications requiring it.